The Achilles heel of UAC

[Guest]

I can understand features like User account control. One piece of spyware as
you full well know can mean your OS is toast. The bad part is the end user
trying to decide to allow or deny the request, especially if they do not
understand what program is making a request. The end user is the Achilles
heel of UAC. If the user could instantly query a central database, and
understand what program is making the request, in order to make an educated
choice, it would be fantastic! This would be empowering the user. Clearly
the developers of UAC need to add this feature. How about designing UAC to
have the capacity to learn, say like a firewall? I could run it full blown,
it might query me once about a program but thereafter allow it without the
annoying nag popup.
Oh well. Back to the drawing board ( Wil E Coyote)

 

[Stephan Rose]

I can understand features like User account control. One piece of spyware
as
you full well know can mean your OS is toast. The bad part is the end
user trying to decide to allow or deny the request, especially if they do
not
understand what program is making a request. The end user is the Achilles
heel of UAC. If the user could instantly query a central database, and
understand what program is making the request, in order to make an
educated
choice, it would be fantastic! This would be empowering the user.
Clearly
the developers of UAC need to add this feature. How about designing UAC
to
have the capacity to learn, say like a firewall? I could run it full
blown, it might query me once about a program but thereafter allow it
without the annoying nag popup.
Oh well. Back to the drawing board ( Wil E Coyote)

How about a different concept:

If I didn't install it, IT DOES NOT NEED TO RUN!!

Don't need a database for that. Only takes common sense...

UAC - The Achilles heel of the User

--
Stephan Rose
2003 Yamaha R6

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[Consultant]

why not an r1?

How about a different concept:

If I didn't install it, IT DOES NOT NEED TO RUN!!

Don't need a database for that. Only takes common sense...

UAC - The Achilles heel of the User

--
Stephan Rose
2003 Yamaha R6

????????????????
?????????????

 

[jim]

UAC= USELESS ANNOYING CRAP
has an other problem I spotted right from the start...

it is the "CRY WOLF"... after you are fed up pressing uac, you either
disable it
or you press it without reading..

its a stupid implementation.... gesh.. how many bad ideas have gone into
vista?...
its incredible!

 

[Stephan Rose]

why not an r1?

I will likely get one eventually but not really in a hurry.

The R6 is already overkill for the street. And actually here in Germany, the
R6 is actually has a small advantage because it is slightly more agile than
an R1 due to the lower displacement. So when it comes to really twisty
roads, the extra displacement of the R1 does it no good.

Autobahn of course is an entirely different story. That's about the only
thing I'd like an R1 for to be honest. There the R1 would really shine as I
could cruise in a lower RPM range more comfortably. Note that when I
say "cruise" I mean average speed of 120-130 miles per hour. =)

--
Stephan Rose
2003 Yamaha R6

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å›ã®ã“ã¨å¿˜ã‚ŒãŸæ™‚ãŒãªã„ã‹ã‚‰

 

[Consultant]

well, being in germany, as you are, shouldn't you be riding a nice bmw 1200?
lol

 

[Stephan Rose]

well, being in germany, as you are, shouldn't you be riding a nice bmw
1200? lol

Naw, not into the BMWs too much. I prefer Audi and they don't make bikes. =)

So I'll just have to stick to the Japanese haha.

Nihon no ootobai wa suteki desu ne.
Watashi no R6 o aisuru. =)

--
Stephan Rose
2003 Yamaha R6

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å›ã®ã“ã¨å¿˜ã‚ŒãŸæ™‚ãŒãªã„ã‹ã‚‰

 

[Richard Urban]

I think it is just common sense.

If you are typing in a word processor, and all of a sudden you get a UAC
prompt - you had better say NO.

Same for just reading an email. Same for surfing the web.

If **YOU** did nothing to initiate the prompt, do what you tell your 15 year
old daughter.

*****SAY NO*****

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Guest]

I was very serious about offering advice to improve UAC. If the feature
could say, interface in a more efficient way with the built in Windows
firewall it could work better. 1) Make UAC learn what programs the user
uses on a regular basis.
2) When the allow\deny box pops up help the user identify the program in
question, what the threat is, and sound advice on how to respond. 3) UAC
should be able to query a database to help identify the program, or possible
spyware.
I think Vista can only get better if we all work together. As it stands I
personally have switched UAC off because it annoys me. I would use it if it
could learn my habits and identify what program it is prompting me to respond
to. Honestly most people look at the executable they are being prompted with
and don't have a clue what it is. This is frustrating and leads to anger,
then the user feels helpless as they do not know what they are responding to.

 

[Richard Urban]

I have to admit that it is more for the geek type people who know what is on
their O/S. Unfortunately, I fear that takes in only about 1/10th of 1 % of
the users.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Guest]

In that case only install digitally signed applications. Youse are looking
at one element of a defence and ignoring all the others.

 

[Guest]

The average user probably does not understand what "digitally signed
applications" are. They simply want their OS to install their program and
for it to work correctly.
For UAC to succeed it must transcend the levels of user experiance. Perhaps
a low/medium/high level depending upon the user's perceived experiance would
help.
I would implement the above suggestions in my previous post and sit back and
see what happens. I predict it would be a more user friendly experiance.

 

[Guest]

I turn UAC off myself. Research quoted by MS says that most users regard
themselves as advanced (see an accountant that can make singing and dancing
spreadsheets without any code). So most users who shouldn't will rate
themselves higher for installs.

 

[Adam Albright]

I have to admit that it is more for the geek type people who know what is on
their O/S. Unfortunately, I fear that takes in only about 1/10th of 1 % of
the users.

Sure right, all MVPs you'll probably say next.

ROTFLAMO!

One more time for the utterly clueless. It isn't that the concept of
UAC is so bad, the DAMN THING DOESN'T WORK AS ADVERTISED!

It doesn't take a "geek" to know what's on his computer or when
something is broken. It does help to have common sense.

 

[Daniel Jameson]

The bigger software vendors are going to love this. They'll get to sell
"Vista Compatible" upgrades just to make the UAC prompts go away, eventhough
their current version works fine once the user gets past the UAC prompt.

--
Daniel Jameson
·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·.·
If the man tells you to hate another,
It's not so you can benefit at the expense of the other...
It's so he can benefit at the expense of you!

 

[Lang Murphy]

Yah, no kidding... so many of the posters here obviously have higher
opinions of their abilities than the truth would bear out... (not addressed
to you...)

Lang

 

[Jan Hyde]

Jon Acord <[email protected]>'s wild thoughts were released

I can understand features like User account control. One piece of spyware as
you full well know can mean your OS is toast. The bad part is the end user
trying to decide to allow or deny the request, especially if they do not
understand what program is making a request. The end user is the Achilles
heel of UAC. If the user could instantly query a central database, and
understand what program is making the request, in order to make an educated
choice, it would be fantastic! This would be empowering the user. Clearly
the developers of UAC need to add this feature. How about designing UAC to
have the capacity to learn, say like a firewall? I could run it full blown,
it might query me once about a program but thereafter allow it without the
annoying nag popup.
Oh well. Back to the drawing board ( Wil E Coyote)

Unless the end user is an admin user that chances are they
won't be able to give it permission to install.

 

[Saran]

The average user probably does not understand what "digitally signed
applications" are. They simply want their OS to install their
program and for it to work correctly.
For UAC to succeed it must transcend the levels of user experiance.
Perhaps a low/medium/high level depending upon the user's perceived
experiance would help.
I would implement the above suggestions in my previous post and sit
back and see what happens. I predict it would be a more user
friendly experiance.

How about actually making normal users to type in the Administrator (or
account with those privs) login/password instead of just handing them
the keys my request, which is what UAC does.

That's one area Linux definitely has the advantage... security... if you
are a normal user, you MUST login (even temp login such as 'su' as root)
to perform tasks that require super user privileges.

 

[Guest]

The UAC we are discussing here is for people who have already logged in with
admin level account. A normal user needs to enter an admin account and
password.

 

[Guest]

Thats the idea Jan, if the user has not been granted permission they will
need to contact their IT person for guidance. This is why we have
permissions. Get the big picture? The topic at hand is I am looking for
suggestions on how to improve 'user account control' in Windows Vista. Any
ideas anyone?